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Dallas political consultant Kathy Nealy made a dramatic entrance when last year when she became a senior vice president for 5LINX, a direct sales company that claims to offer customers “life-enhancing products and services.” A YouTube video shows her being carried up to the stage on the shoulders of coworkers at a convention last September. That was more than a year after she’d been linked in court documents to a criminal investigation targeting Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price.

Price and Nealy were named in a federal indictments made public last week, along with Dapheny Fain, Price’s top aide, and Christopher Campbell, a political consultant who sometimes worked with Nealy. The indictment alleges that Price masterminded a criminal conspiracy that helped businesses win lucrative county contracts in exchange for bribes.

Child pornography, wire fraud, an aggravated assault and professional misconduct landed Texas lawyers in trouble, according to disciplinary measures made public by the State Bar of Texas.

Here’s the state bar’s full list for December:

On Aug. 28, 2013, the Board of Disciplinary Appeals signed an agreed judgment of suspension of Alexander Louis Bednar [#24044456], 43, of Oklahoma City. Bednar was suspended from the practice of law for one year by the Supreme Court of Oklahoma on or about April 2, 2013, in State of Oklahoma, ex rel, Oklahoma State Bar Association,
Complainant v. Alexander L. Bednar, Respondent, SCBD 5927, for failing to appear at deposition hearing, threatening to file lawsuits against witnesses if they testified, engaging in a pattern of missed deadlines, and altering a court document by affixing opposing counsel’s signature without permission. BODA Cause No. 52882.

The FBI is warning that a new kind of malware known as “Beta Bot” is being used by criminals.

It targets financial institutions, e-commerce sites, online payment platforms, and social networking sites. The malware steals log-in credentials and financial information, according to an FBI statement. It blocks a computer user’s access to security websites and disables anti-virus programs.

The malware appears to be an official-looking Microsoft Windows message box named “User Account Control” that requests a user’s permission to allow the “Windows Command Processor” to modify the user’s computer settings.

ProPublica has an interesting article on a federal judge’s decision to overturn the convictions of five New Orleans police officers accused of shooting unarmed civilians after Hurricane Katrina. The judge concluded that the prosecutors had engaged in “grotesque” misconduct.

“This is the first time this elite group will publicly discuss their work,” SMU Dedman Law professor William J. Bridge, who is helping plan the event, said in a press release. “This discussion will provide a unique window into the still compelling, still controversial efforts of the Warren Commission, whose work was part of the largest criminal investigation ever conducted in the United States.”

A reward of $10,000 is being offered for information leading to the identification, arrest, and conviction of a man dubbed the “Loan Ranger Bandit.”

The suspect has robbed at least a dozen financial institutions over the past four years in Texas, Mississippi, Kentucky and Arkansas. The most recent robbery was last month, when he returned to the Santa Fe Community Credit Union in Temple.

Authorities say that the robber is becoming increasingly reckless.

“We have a lot of good surveillance photos where he is looking directly at the camera,” Special Agent Russell Di Lisi said in a statement. “Somebody out there has to know him or recognize him, and that’s why we need the public’s help.”

Di Lisi, who works in the FBI’s Dallas office, said that the robbery targets financial institutions in stand-alone buildings that are close to major roadways and often targets the same institutions more than once.

The suspect is described as a white male in his early 30s. He appears to be between five feet seven inches and six feet tall and weighs about 200 pounds. He has a medium build, short, light brown hair and a small mole or mark above his right eye. He wears glasses. And he may be driving a maroon Chevrolet S-10 pickuptruck with a white pinstripe around the truck bed.

Anyone with information is asked to call the FBI at 1-800-CALL-FBI or submit it online at http://tips.fbi.gov.

Texas recorded more than 500 work-related fatalities in 2012, the highest number for the state in a decade. And that follows two years of decreases in fatalities.

That’s according to preliminary data from the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor of Statistics.

A total of 531 fatalities were reported in 2012, an increase of more than 20 percent over the previous year.

The deadliest occupation in Texas was driving heavy and tractor-trailer trucks “with a 57 percent increase in fatal injuries,” according to a statement from the Texas Department of Insurance. Construction deaths also increased.

“Transportation incidents continued as the leading cause of fatal work injuries and accounted for the majority of the total increase in 2012…” according to the statement. “Contact with objects and equipment and violence and other injuries by persons or animals decreased slightly.”

A former state district judge caught up in a South Texas public corruption investigation has been sentenced to 72 months in a federal prison.

Former 404th State District Judge Abel Corral Limas, of Brownsville, was convicted on racketeering charges earlier this year. In a civil case he handled that involved a 2008 helicopter crash at South Padre Island, Limas admitted receiving $8,000 for favorable rulings that was described as eight “golf balls.”

Limas also was ordered to pay almost $6.8 million in restitution.

The public corruption investigation also has snared former Texas state representative Jose Santiago “Jim” Solis, former Cameron County District Attorney Armando Villalobos and others.

A West Texas land surveyor has pleaded guilty to weapons charges after a small arsenal was found in his home and at a ranch near Balmorhea.

Steven Leonard Prewit, 54, appeared before a U.S. magistrate in Midland on Wednesday. He faces up to ten years in prison.

Prewit admitted that he illegally possessed eight unregistered firearms silencers, according to an FBI statement. Federal agents found the silencers as well as “18 fully automatic machine guns, one short-barreled rifle, and four IEDs, all of which were unregistered,” according to the FBI. “All eight of the unregistered firearms silencers did not have serial numbers or manufacturers’ markings as required.”

As part of a plea agreement, the feds agreed to dismiss charges related to the machine guns and the explosive devices.